Through the Wire

Contributors: Kent Gibbons, Ted Hearn.

Why They Wore Lipstick to the Party

Clothes designer Betsey Johnson had author Geralyn Lucas in a headlock hug at last week’s book party-cum-“Courage Night” celebrating Lifetime programming director Lucas’s gripping memoir, Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy, and “all of the women who have fought breast cancer.”

Lucas had been effusively thanking Johnson, another breast-cancer survivor, for support that includes hosting other “Courage Night” book readings in her stores and donating a portion of sales during those nights to the cause.

Johnson couldn’t repress the urge to join Lucas at the podium and, when she sensed a break, declare, “I’m so proud of you, kiddo.”

Said Lucas: “I’m star struck — I don’t know what to do. Betsey Johnson is around my neck!”

St. Martin’s Press editor Jennifer Weis called Lipstick “a book for advocacy for this fight for all women,” and it has become a multipronged campaign. Lifetime, of course, is involved. Public-affairs executive vice president Meredith Wagner gave a moving introduction to Weis. CEO Carole Black had a scheduling conflict — she was receiving the Breast Cancer Foundation’s Humanitarian Award on Lifetime’s behalf elsewhere in town. Self magazine hosted the party, in a Greenwich Village townhouse it had already transformed into the “Self Center” for a monthlong “open house.”

About 500 people were there; survivor stories and sadder stories were shared; the book was celebrated and Lucas — with family in the crowd, including 5-year-old daughter, Skye, conceived four years after the surgery — seemed a bit overwhelmed. (NBC’s Today was there, too, filming for a segment scheduled for Oct. 20.)

“I knew I’d wear lipstick again that day in the O.R.,” she said of her 1995 surgery, when she was 27. “But I never thought I’d be wearing it here tonight with you.”

As Mayor, Fla. Exec Has Tree City Blues

August and September were horrific for cable executives throughout Florida, but doubly so for BrightHouse Networks’ regional director of public affairs in Central Florida, Brian Aungst Sr.

Not only did Aungst have the task of keeping 25 local municipalities informed of the operator’s efforts to restore service after a chain of hurricanes, he also had citizens of his hometown of Clearwater tracking him down with pleas for help.

That’s what he gets for being mayor, in addition to his day job.

“There are some people who think I can just snap my fingers and get things restored. It’s always a little hectic,” he said.

Aungst split time between the systems and Clearwater’s emergency operations center to keep informed on damage recovery after hurricanes Charley — whose eye barely missed Clearwater — and Jeanne.

Clearwater, “The Tree City,” is still cleaning up and trying to figure out how to pay for a year’s worth of downed trees and shrubs that city crews collected in three weeks, according to Aungst, who’s been mayor for six years.

Were he less dedicated, Aungst could have missed it all. He and his wife were vacationing in Bermuda as Charley approached. They decided to come home early and made the last plane out before the East Coast airports closed.

“I felt a double duty to return,” he explained.

'Apprentice’ Strivers Pull Crossover Pitch

Guess there’s not enough exposure of those poor executive candidates on NBC’s The Apprentice.

Last week, they got a few more hours of airtime, shilling sandwich makers and cleaning products on QVC.

Mark Burnett Productions, which created the show, approached the network for a task for the cast of the reality show, explained QVC spokeswoman Bonnie Clark. “Because we’re live, they thought it could expose what it’s like before the cameras,” she added.

Plus, Donald Trump has had experience with the channel: in September he appeared on the shopping net to push sales of his book Trump: Think Like a Billionaire.

QVC gained from cross promotion and sold out the featured items, including $76.25 “retro non-stick panini grills” and chunks of melamine used for scrubbing floors and walls, priced at $19.50.

And surprisingly enough, there was also high viewer interest in the DVD set from the first season of a certain reality show.

Cubs Fans Can Ail With Pals And Ale

Chicago Cubs fans are now in hibernation, their team knocked from playoff contention weeks ago.

But that doesn’t mean their friends in Congress have forgotten about them.

Two weeks ago, the House passed a bill designed to broaden access to Cubs games televised in sports bars.

Current law requires blacking out Cubs games in sports bars if Superstation WGN is received via satellite. The blackout rule does not apply to cable.

Major League Baseball tried to preserve the blackout rule, but the league was no match for Tribune Co., which owns both WGN and the Cubs.

“Hopefully, if this legislation is enacted, Cubs fans will not have to suffer in the darkness in their homes. They can go to commercial establishments and commiserate,” said Tribune’s Washington, D.C., vice president, Shaun Sheehan.

Grave Reservations On TV Morticians

It’s no surprise funeral directors watch such cable fare as Six Feet Under and Family Plots.

But they don’t necessarily like what they see, according to a recent funeral directors survey by Citrin Cooperman, a top 40 accounting and business consulting firm.

The survey normally posits questions to mortuary executives in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut about business issues such as pricing, cash flow and profitability. This year, the survey also asked whether they watch the cable shows and what they think of Hollywood’s depiction of their profession.

They gave their TV peers low marks.

“If the home depicted in Six Feet Under was my funeral home, I would quit the business,” wrote one funeral worker.

Added another: “They are all so screwed up, there is no way you could work there!”

Hey, this is TV. If it was dull and quiet we’d be reading books instead.

The Loved One, anyone?